Monday, December 14, 2009

More than 4,000 people with disabilities in Tennessee will lose family support aid next summer

From The Jackson Sun in Tennessee:


For Henry Shaw (pictured), it paid for wheelchair ramps and helped cover the cost of a person who stays with him at night.

For Lynn and Chris Donofrio, it also covered the cost of wheelchair ramps and helped them afford a special shower for those with limited mobility.

But after next summer, they and about 4,000 other people with disabilities will lose aid they have received from the Tennessee Family Support Program, which participants say is a small but critical patch that helps them better approximate a normal life while coping with their disabilities. It helps pay for a broad range of expenses that might not be covered by insurance or other public aid.

But the program, which cost $7.5 million to operate last year, has been funded exclusively with state money, making it a prime target for cuts as state leaders search for ways to keep Tennessee's government running on less revenue because of the recession. The program would have been eliminated at the beginning of the 2010 fiscal year last summer had it not been for federal stimulus money. Barring a legislative reprieve, it will end in June.

Some disabled Tennesseans, such as Shaw, have only recently learned that the program could be gone within months.

Shaw, 53, has been quadriplegic since a drunken driver hit him as he and his uncle drove to a grocery store about 15 years ago, and Family Support pays a portion of the cost of an aide to keep watch over Shaw at night in case of complications caused by his condition.

He prefers living relatively on his own, saying he has thrived while he's had some measure of independence, compared with living in a nursing home, which he briefly tried shortly after the accident. He has lived in a small apartment in Brownsville since his house burned last year.

He said he has not yet prepared for life without the help he receives from Family Support.

"It's a shock that there's not a lot of positive talk" about the program being saved, Shaw said. "... It's hard to deal with when you've had a particular support that you base your daily living on."

The Tennessee Division of Intellectual Disabilities Services, formerly the Division of Mental Retardation Services, administers the program, though many who receive help from it are not mentally disabled. Missy Marshall, an Intellectual Disabilities Services spokeswoman, says that if the program is not removed from the division's expenses, cuts could have to be made to federally co-funded programs that help the mentally disabled people who are typically the division's priority.

Elimination of the program was not because of a lack of need. Marshall said 6,300 people are on a waiting list to receive aid from the Family Support Program.

"While we would all rather see this and other programs continue, the reality is that we must do our part to help the state reduce spending," Marshall said in a written statement.

One of the purposes of the Family Support Program is to preserve families affected by disabilities through covering expenses. Donna DeStefano, assistant director of the Tennessee Disability Coalition, said families in which a member has a disability have a higher rate of divorce.

"They won't have even this little bit of support" if the program is eliminated, DeStefano said. "What this has done has kept people within their communities and kept families together. ... When you throw in another real stressor, you're almost guaranteed that there's going to be more breakdown of the family, and that's just not good for the society."

The Donofrios, who live in Huron in Henderson County, say the program has been a great help to them as they have grappled with a myriad of conditions that have severely limited their mobility. Chris, 51, copes with severe arthritis and diabetes and recently had a lengthy hospital stay for problems with his pancreas. Lynn, 61, has severe hip and back problems and sarcoidosis, an arthritis-like condition that causes inflammation of internal organs.

The couple has served on district and local councils that monitor the Family Support Program. Like disability advocates and others who receive help from the program, they take aim at Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and question why their assistance had to be cut. They say that they, like the state, are coping with sharp financial limits of the recession but think that they and other disabled people are dealing with cuts at least in part because their thinner numbers make their anger more politically endurable.

"I'd like to give (Bredesen) my fixed income and say, 'Live on this for a year,'" Lynn Donofrio said.

At a November budget hearing with Bredesen, Debra Payne, the interim deputy commissioner of Intellectual Disabilities Services, lauded the Family Support Program as one of the state's most successful initiatives. She also warned the governor of the adverse financial and personal consequences cutting the program would have on thousands of Tennesseans.

"That's done, right?" Bredesen asked. "... The legislature passed that (2010 fiscal year budget), and there was a temporary reprieve from the stimulus money. The pain has not yet been endured, but the decision has been made."

Bredesen and state officials also discussed cutting state support for those with mental disabilities, with the governor saying it is a necessary consideration as the state weighs options including the potential early release of convicts to save money.

In a statement sent after the hearing, Bredesen's press secretary, Lydia Lenker, said: "Gov. Bredesen is faced with what he has described as the toughest budget of his administration as he's considering potential 9 percent cuts across the board. ... The level of funding necessary to sustain the program is just not available."

Bill Brewer, executive director of Madison-Haywood Developmental Services, which administers Family Support aid in eight West Tennessee counties, said he hopes the successes and heavy consequences of eliminating the program will eventually win out and the legislature will find money for it next year.

"I see their side of it. It's raw state dollars," he said. "But the legislature shouldn't have passed that law if they weren't going to support it."

But Brewer said that many who receive help from Family Support have not yet absorbed that the program is likely nearing its end.

"I don't think we've seen the worst of it yet," he said.